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Jamaica News - Real Estate - Services (July 26, 2004)
Mammee Bay squatters evicted
SCORES OF informal settlers were evicted from a disputed 40-acre prime beach front property in Mammee Bay, St. Ann on Friday, ending years of legal wrangling over the occupation of the property.

The eviction exercise was peacefully carried out under the watchful eyes of police and security personnel. This follows the intervention of Deputy Superintendent of Police Anthony Castelle who held meeting with the residents the previous day and got them to comply with the eviction order.

However, with the clearing of the residents from the property a serious social problem has been created with several women and their children now left homeless and having to be sleeping without a shelter.

AN ACT OF WICKEDNESS
Leader of the Mammee Bay Squatters Settlement, Roy Daniel, described the eviction of the residents and the bulldozing of their farms and other belongings as a act of wickedness.

On Friday morning, it was actually the residents who began to pull down the building on the arrival of the eviction team and a part from one woman who reported that the bulldozer ran over the board from her dismantle house, they were all allowed to remove most of their belongings and whatever pieces of board and other items they could salvage before the bulldozer moved in.

Friday's eviction of the over 40 families followed a supreme court ruling on Tuesday which gave Mammee Bay Resort Limited the right to reclaim the remaining five-acre portion of the disputed property that was being occupied.

After serving notices on the occupants, the owner tried to reclaim the property by force on May 11, but this was stalled by a court action. One of the squatters, Owen Crosbie, filed an injunction in the Supreme Court against the action.

POSSESSION
Crosbie had also sought adverse possession of the five acres of the property on which he and the other families are living, claiming that it had been occupied by his grandfather since 1960. But this case was thrown out in the Supreme Court on Tuesday paving the way for Friday's eviction.

From Thursday when word of the plan eviction exercise began to circulate throughout the community, some of the residents began pulling down wooden structures that were either their houses or shops, while others refuse to budge holding out some hope of remaining on the property.

Unfortunately on Thursday overnight rain caused much discomfort for those who had been sleeping in the open and children who got soaked had to be rescued in the homes of neighbours. Among those who got soaked in Thursday night rain was Owen Crosbie's common-law wife and a six-month-child.


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